


the one to someone

by shamelessllamapeanutthing



Category: Bleach
Genre: Challenge fic, Confessions, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Introspection, Songfic, idk what happened lmao, like lots of fluff, someone to you by banners, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26217733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamelessllamapeanutthing/pseuds/shamelessllamapeanutthing
Summary: Now that Rukia knows, she just wants to belong to him.
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Rukia
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25
Collections: The Seireitei Server August Writing Challenge 2020





	the one to someone

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of those feel-don't-think pieces that came out in a flow when I heard the song prompt, hope you all enjoy it!
> 
> Fucking amazing beta work by [goldensprite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldensprite/pseuds/goldensprite)
> 
> Check out their fics for dark, kinky sex ;)

Rukia doesn’t know why she came here again, doesn’t remember deciding to. She was running across Seireitei minutes ago, rough parchment tucked under her armpit, then the shoji pulled back to reveal the face of Kiyone, and when she was told she was free for the day was when the lines started blurring, only to sharpen in the face of the bare Sokyoku hill. 

There’s something racing inside her chest, visceral and warmer than the flames of the holy bird had been that day, and the Senkaimon is mockingly familiar, appearing closer than it should, than it is. The sky opens up above her, though, she walks the ground of her own will, and yet her eyes mist with tears a Kuchiki should be ashamed of. Tears she doesn’t understand, because she’s free. 

Ichigo saved her, and Byakuya and Renji and Inoue and Sado and Ishida and Ukitake and…

A loud sigh breaks out past her lips and she wipes her tears away. 

There’s something peeking from beyond the curtain of her consciousness, something loud but muted, vibrant but just this little bit out of reach. She doesn’t know why she’s here, she doesn’t know what she’s feeling, except that the absence of a feeling she doesn’t find herself missing burns through her core. 

She’s free. She’s truly free. 

Growing up, she never had the luxury of books, so when she obtained it with the Kuchiki family she could never get enough. She’s read so much, leaning her head against an aching palm deep into midnight hours, imagining, and then shaking her head at her silliness. The books, the stories contained within have made her feel so much, but like the characters and their lives, the emotions were imaginary. The real world feels nothing alike. 

She thinks she should be happy. She’s free, she tells herself, and she truly does feel so, light footsteps streaking across air currents like the dances of Sode No Shirayuki, and yet she keeps coming back here with a choked up throat and a blotchy face, crying and completely ignorant as to why she is. 

If Renji sees her he’ll call her a crybaby, she knows. The thought derives a soft laugh from her and once she starts laughing, she finds she can’t stop. 

Yes, freedom feels nothing like what they say in the novels, but then, she thinks, how many of those writers have come back from the precipice of death? 

Not many, she believes.

Letting go of pain is painful in itself, and you do everything you can to hold on, she’s learned. The conscious prefers habit to comfort, and the knots unravelling within her stomach with each nod she receives from her brother, each smile she sees on her Captain, each pat of Renji’s large hand to her shoulder, each giggle of Orihime’s that won’t leave her mind, break her from the inside out, like toxins being flushed out of a body that has forgotten what it’s like to be without. 

Before she met Ichigo she hadn’t realised how lonely she was, how her loud footsteps down Kuchiki manor’s empty hallways drowned out every little spark of hope she had fought tooth and nail to keep through her years in Rukongai. After she returned from Karakura, she found herself laughing at how little of her soul belonged in her own world. 

She couldn’t remember consenting to the shackles she could suddenly feel around her ankles, and today she hates how much her skin had gotten used to the cold bite of their metal. 

Now that they’re gone, she feels she has nothing left.

Rukia lifts her hand in the air, fingers arched towards the Senkaimon. She should dread the very sight of it, but she barely feels a sliver of terror. 

A gust of wind sings through her fingers, blowing her hair into her face and she closes her eyes and digs in her heels. It feels like she might fly away otherwise. 

There’s nothing tethering her to this ground. 

The gasp that flies out of her mouth at that is soft, dainty, and so wholly unlike her that she almost whips around to check if someone has snuck up on her. 

The racing in her chest dies in the face of the realisation, and she thinks she is kind of stupid for taking this long. The shackles that Ichigo broke were what bound her to Soul Society, to her duties as a Shinigami and a Kuchiki. With them gone, she remains suspended high in the blue sky, unable to find her footing. She doesn’t belong in the Human World, but she doesn’t belong here either. 

…but she wants to. 

The slate is clear now. In more ways than one this is a new beginning, and for a second Rukia grins, thinking of herself as the phoenix that rose, purified and stronger, from the flames of the halberd. She is finally on the same page as Byakuya, now, and closer than she’s ever been to her squad mates who risked everything to try to save her. Kukkaku has forgiven her.

Renji is back, and she wants to belong to him. 

The shackles kept her grounded- so what? Her footsteps can be light, streaking across air currents like the dances of Sode No Shirayuki, so long as she keeps her hands tightly twined with those of the people she loves. She doesn’t need to belong to Soul Society, but to her brother, to her friends, to her squad mates, to the people she swore to protect as a Shinigami. 

Rukia has clawed her way out of worse; this is barely a fight. There’s a place in this world, exactly her size and shape and alive with the thrum of her very own reiatsu, that no one but her can take, and she’s determined to find it. The wind is going crazy underneath her fingertips and she laughs. She is going to reach out for people that she can call her own. 

She doesn’t return to the Sokyoku hill, ever again. 

…

The barracks are lit with a golden glow, rich and warm along the blurry edges of twilight. The rap of Rukia’s knuckles sounds loud in the deserted hallway and she bounces on the balls of her feet, wincing slightly. 

When Renji pulls the door open, his narrow eyes blow wide. 

“Rukia?” 

She pushes him aside, striding into his quarters with a curious glance around. 

“This is as filthy as I expected it to be- you really are an ape, aren’t you?” 

Behind her, Renji mutters something in indignation that she tunes out, eyes running over the cluttered sitting area. His sandals are inverted on themselves, thrown haphazardly in the entryway, and his shihakusho is discarded on top of the low, wooden table that he has placed right in front of the door in the fashion of a man least concerned with the interior of his house. Old dirty utensils, socks that she knows will be smelling horrible and parchment alike are strewn in the sitting area and Rukia turns around and cocks a brow at a blushing Renji. 

“Why are you here, pipsqueak?” 

If Rukia stomps on Renji’s foot with her full weight, it’s only because he deserves it. 

“Come to visit you and this is how you treat me?” 

“It’s one in the night!” 

“I was going to come earlier but Nii-sama said you planned on going drinking with Hisagi fuku-taichou and Kira fuku-taichou. Whatever. It’s not like you were asleep.” 

She trails her eyes down his fully-dressed frame to emphasise her point. He simply rolls his eyes. 

“Well, what is it?” 

She brightens up. “I thought we should have a sleepover, like old times!” 

…

“Some warning,” Renji grunts. 

“Shut up.” 

“Some fucking warning,” he growls. 

For someone the size of Abarai Renji, Abarai Renji huffs too much as he drags out an extra futon for Rukia, and thus she’s inclined to believe he’s acting out, so she throws herself on his shoulders, latching her hands together in front of his throat. He gives an ‘oof’ of surprise and then squares his shoulders, continuing to drag the futon into his bedroom next to his own with Rukia hanging on his back. 

“Look at you, Abarai fuku-taichou, all these big muscles looking completely useless now,” she sniggers.  
Renji throws her a nasty glare over his shoulder before dropping the futon and clumsily trying to elbow her side. His considerably larger size turns out to be a problem, though, and Rukia howls with laughter at his groan of defeat. 

It’s with spectacular ease that Renji hauls the futon into place next and bends low to toss Rukia onto it. Rukia falls back with an amused huff, rolling to her side just in time to avoid the heavy palm Renji slams into the mattress right next to her head. 

The lieutenant leans down on his elbows on top of her and Rukia cocks her head softly, eyes trained on the red strands falling the ponytail that came undone in their tussle, now pooling into the crook of Renji’s neck and tickling the noblewoman’s cheeks where they fall forward down his shoulder.

She notices where her bunched fist pulled the sleeve of his yukata out of place on her descent to the futon to expose a tattooed shoulder with the aforementioned big muscles rippling as he rests his weight on that elbow. In silence, they watch each other, taking in every little detail and running comparisons with what they remember of the other person from when they were together, tick marking everything that matches while trying to repaint the pictures inside their heads with each little detail that now varies. It feels overdue, this smooth caress of inquisitive eyes, an itch they never got to scratch in the high of battle. 

Rukia’s hair is longer, and so is his. The tattoos are a very flattering addition, she thinks, and becomes hyper aware of how she, herself, has collected a variety of faint scars threading into the lines of her skin like beautiful silver reminders of everything she has lived through. She hopes he notices the expression in her eyes is the same as that day by the river when she first noticed Renji blushing over her, because his older, more angled face is caught in the same childlike awe that makes her heart rush. 

She doesn’t know how to explain to Renji how full her chest feels, throat clenching with a feeling that has choked both of them for years, a sweet yearning she now feels she understands better than all those years ago. 

With a deep breath, Renji closes his eyes and touches his forehead to the empty spot on the mattress next to her face. Rukia wants to wrap her arms around her waist and finds the courage to go through with it in the new resolution she came to just this afternoon. 

“Why are you here?” he asks again, and his voice is light, careful the way it had gradually become as they grew older.  
She considers the reply that instinctively rises to her lips for not a second too long. 

“The same reason you abandoned me that day.” 

Renji stiffens on top of her and Rukia buries a smile. 

“This would be the best for me. I think almost dying qualifies as a reason to be selfish, won’t you say?” 

There’s a sharp exhale dusting the skin of Rukia’s neck and she thinks it might erupt in a violently embarrassing blush even as she feels an intense urge to thread her fingers through Renji’s hair and bring his face closer. She gazes at him from the corner of her eyes, and smiles at the flabbergasted look in his widened eyes. 

“That day… when Kuchiki taichou came to…-”

“I know.” 

“But I hurt you.” 

“You did.” 

Renji closes his eyes and frowns, digging his head deeper into the futon in a mindless attempt to disappear. 

“I am sorry.” 

“I never blamed you. I know how stupid you can be.” 

Renji says nothing. She snickers. 

“You fucking fool. You’re still trying to run away.” 

Renji huffs out an incredulous laugh. 

“I am not running, just… some fucking warning, Rukia.” 

“Every time I look at you is a full warning, Renji. I don’t know what you want from me. It’s not my fault you don’t pay attention.” 

His hand sneaks under her head and she lets his calloused palm cup her cheek with delicacy nobody else will know to expect from this big buffoon of a man. 

“I am always paying attention, but I…” he trails off. She actually brings her fingers to the side of his face at that. 

“You’re always giving in to crippling self-doubt. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I told you I love it when you raise your hand enthusiastically, or when you try so hard to prove yourself. I have always loved it.” 

There’s a glossy film of unshed tears in his eyes. Rukia gathers him closer. 

“You fool, you fucking fool…”

Renji’s cheeks colour a red to rival his hair. Rukia is starting to remember why it became her favourite colour. 

“So,” he forces humour into his voice and she lets him. He has never been good with feelings of any kind that isn’t intense self-deprecation. “Who do I expect a shovel talk from, Kuchiki-taichou or Ichigo?” 

She hums. “Both.” 

He laughs till his body shakes but the moisture in the corner of his eyes speaks for how it’s out of relief rather than any real amusement. 

When he calms down and his mouth trembles and the tears have been wiped away by her rough, callused thumbs, she drags his face away from the futon and slots their lips together.

**Author's Note:**

> NGL, I planned a smut scene but didn't think it fit with the vibe. Renji is the type to wine and dine his lady, you know?
> 
> Leave me a comment!
> 
> Come scream at me about Bleach on [Tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/shamelessllamapeanutthing)


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